Randomness is unpredictability

Journal article

The concept of randomness has been unjustly neglected in recent philosophical literature, and when philosophers have thought about it, they have usually acquiesced in views about the concept that are fundamentally flawed. After indicating the ways in which these accounts are flawed, I propose that randomness is to be understood as a special case of the epistemic concept of the unpredictability of a process. This proposal arguably captures the intuitive desiderata for the concept of randomness; at least it should suggest that the commonly accepted accounts cannot be the whole story and more philosophical attention needs to be paid.

Authors: Eagle, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Journal: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
• Volume: 56
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 749–790
• Publication date: 2005-12-01
• Edition: Accepted Manuscript
• DOI: 10.1093/bjps/axi138
• EISSN: 1464-3537
• ISSN: 0007-0882
• Language: English
• Keywords: randomness
• Subjects: Probability theory and stochastic processes; Metaphysics; Philosophy of science